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11/07/2016

Rendering for Construction, how to improve Health and Safety

You only need to do fancy renderings to win bids right? Show off to the client how their shiny new project is going to look?

A common misconception about rendering is that it's a way to get a computer generated model as close to the real thing as possible, and it takes a really long time, so therefore it's only for the most important people, the clients. Well it can do, I know several releases of Navisworks ago our standard advice for getting a high quality render out was set it up then go home for the night, and hope for the best that it would all be ready in the morning and you wouldn't run out of memory or find your hardware blue screened on you.

Now I know a few of you are nodding your head at this and many of you have probably already started to embrace A360 Cloud Rendering, a way to send your model to us, get on with other work, then receive a link to a nice shiny render in your email. Once you have done a render it's pretty easy to change settings and re-render it bigger or a different type of render such as a panorama, and even easier to download it or share it with your company or the wider world. You can also send up to cloud rendering directly from within AutoCAD, Revit, Navisworks, Fusion 360 and 3DS Max or upload AutoCAD and Fusion 360 files to the Rendering in A360 website.

So what has all this got to do with Health and Safety? Well one of the biggest challenges with implementing a health and safety policy is ensuring everyone understands what is being asked of them, this could be due to terminology, interpretation of documents, or simple language barriers as we see on projects around the world. Visual communication is essential to getting a point across, so using renderings, visualisations and anything to back up potential dangers or ensure that workers understand their restrictions before they go on site is something that should be embraced.

In the example below we have a model that includes a terrain and site plan from Infraworks exported as an FBX, alongside a bridge created with Civil 3D, Revit and Dynamo, all imported into Navisworks. Then I simply moved to the cabin of the crane and press Render in Cloud, you can then decide to export still images, panoramas or stereo panoramas (for use with Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard). This can be a much easier way to get the site team to understand what they need to do or what the site may look like than using 2D drawings or upskilling them in navigating 3D models.